Saraiki- The Language of Love

Saraiki: The Language of Love

“No man fully capable of his own language ever masters another.”

George Bernard Shaw.

I go by this saying but I know most of you out there would not be agreeing to it because now a days if not everyone but most people get influenced by things very easily. These things may be cosmetics, clothes, and people or may it be a language. It’s a pity that in Pakistan, our beloved homeland, the backbone i.e. cultural heritage, the majority of people are not very well acquainted to their mother tongues. How many people around you are very well acquainted to their mother tongues and fell proud of the fact? Well, comments reserved! Our mother tongue is our identity and I think we should be fair with our identity. We should serve it with integrity. We can do this by getting well acquainted and well versed to our mother tongues. Here I will tell you more about my mother tongue, i.e. Saraiki.

Saraiki: Saraiki is spoken mainly in the Saraiki belt i.e. Multan and nearby areas and also in Sindh but not in specific areas. In Sindh, the Baluch or Sindhi-Baluch lot mainly speaks Saraiki, these may include Nizamanis, Legharis, Almanis, Jatois, etc.

For me Saraiki is the sweetest language I have ever known. One of my teachers had once said that, “Saraiki in Sindh is like French in Europe.” I think its quiet true. If you get a chance to go to the interior Sindh you will get only a handful of people acquainted to Urdu but you will find most of the people acquainted to Saraiki. But this is only one side of the picture, the abstract one is what I’m going to reveal. In rural areas of course the majority is not very much influenced by the western culture in the sense that they don’t forget their true identity wherever they maybe. So they have love, affection and respect for their mother tongue. The abstract part if when it comes to the urban areas. Here I’m not going to say that people living in the metropolitan don’t have any love, affection and respect for their mother tongue. I would be unjust in saying so because the people I have came across have all these ingredients for their mother tongue. It’s the new generation that doesn’t give a damn to their mother tongue, you may or may not include me in the lot, and it’s really up to you. I don’t consider myself as a scholar or a know-it-all when it comes to Saraiki; my mother tongue. But I would sure like to put some light on the issue anyway. The new generation prefers to speak a slangy “English” language to speaking their mother tongue. Well, you may not consider this as an abuse to English, which of course is a universal language. A very bright example of this is that in my class as far as I know, there are a few kids from Saraiki speaking families but most of them don’t know how to speak Saraiki but I do, deprived of the fact that I have lived almost whole of my life abroad. This is probably because the kids back at home are not brought up in such an environment where cultural heritage and values are the rule of the day.

Not much has been done for the cause of Saraiki; you can know it from the following experience. I searched Saraiki quiet sometime ago at a search engine but to my utter surprise or rather shock all I got as a result was a language spoken in Pakistan. But now after that shock I have done a little effort and made a web site by a Saraiki and for a Saraiki and you will be surprised to know that people from all over the world are appreciating this little effort of mine and have inspired many to go on the same path. So people aren’t all that arrogant and ignorant towards Saraiki but the thing is that they don’t know their past so they can’t plan their future. Well for the benefit of all those Saraikis out there if they want a glimpse at their past you are most welcome to visit my site and leave views. This little effort took me months of struggle and research so I hope all of you will accept it the way it is. The URL is www.saraiki.8m.com (old) and http://www.oocities.org/saraikiz (new).

Another one of my bitter experiences at the net is that when I go at a chat software I look for people who could speak Saraiki but over the past some years I have only come across less than 10 people who chat in Saraiki. You must be wondering that I’m psycho or something that I chat in Saraiki but my thoughts are different I feel proud whenever I speak to a new Saraiki person. It’s an honor for me. My feelings are beyond explanation whenever I speak in Saraiki. But it’s a harsh fact that across the world you can find a few people who know about Saraiki. The same goes for other regional languages and God forbid that day when these may get extinct forever. To avoid the dark age of the extinction of the regional languages we have to get more acquainted to our regional languages, if not possible than at least to our mother tongues would equally help.

This article is not at all a racial discrimination of any sort. I have not written it to accuse people or to make people neglect everything except Saraiki but this is just merely an expression of my meandering thoughts. Rab rakhay.

By: Saraikiz